Stonehenge ‘bluestone’ quarries confirmed in Wales

7 December 2015

Excavation of two quarries in Wales by a team of archaeologists
and geologists, led by Mike Parker Pearson, has confirmed they are sources of Stonehenge’s ‘bluestones’.

New
research by the collaborative project team, published today in Antiquity,
presents detailed evidence of prehistoric quarrying in the Preseli hills in
Pembrokeshire, helping to answer long-standing questions about why, when and
how Stonehenge was built.

“This has been a wonderful opportunity for geologists and archaeologists
to work together. The geologists have been able to lead us to the actual
outcrops where Stonehenge’s stones were extracted.”

The
very large standing stones at Stonehenge are of ‘sarsen’, a local sandstone,
but the smaller ones, known as ‘bluestones’, come from the Preseli hills in the
Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. Geologists have known since the 1920s that
the bluestones were brought to Stonehenge from somewhere in the Preseli Hills,
but only now has there been collaboration with archaeologists to locate and
excavate the actual quarries from which they came as well as shedding
light on how they were quarried and transported.

Richard Bevins (Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales) and Rob Ixer (UCL
and University of Leicester) have identified the outcrop of Carn Goedog as the
main source of Stonehenge’s ‘spotted dolerite’ bluestones and the outcrop of
Craig Rhos-y-felin as a source for one of the ‘rhyolite’ bluestones. The
research published today details excavations at Craig Rhos-y-felin
specifically.

Radiocarbon-dating
of burnt hazelnuts and charcoal from the quarry-workers’ camp fires reveals
that there were several occurrences of megalith-quarrying at these outcrops. Stonehenge
was built during the Neolithic period, between 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. Both
of the quarries in Preseli were exploited in the Neolithic, and Craig
Rhos-y-felin was also quarried in the Bronze Age, around 4,000 years ago.

The
new discoveries may also help to understand why Stonehenge was built. Mike and his team believe that the bluestones were erected at Stonehenge
around 2900 BC, long before the giant sarsens were put up around 2500 BC.

As Mike indicates:

“Stonehenge was a Welsh monument from its very beginning. If we can find
the original monument in Wales from which it was built, we will finally be able
to solve the mystery of why Stonehenge was built and why some of its stones
were brought so far.”